


Excalibur

by constantamethyst



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Character Death, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Not A Fix-It, References to Norse Religion & Lore, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-10 14:33:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18662326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/constantamethyst/pseuds/constantamethyst
Summary: Morgan's journey.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Not beta read.

She’s almost five years old when she loses her dad. Of course, she doesn't really understand at first. When her mom comes back from battle in her Rescue suit, singed and bruised, she runs from Uncle Happy's arms and wraps herself around one of the metal legs of her mom's suit.

The faceplate raises to display her beautiful mother, tears down her face, blood dripping from her forehead.

Morgan frowns, upset that her mom looks so beat up. But she has one other concern. “Mommy, where's daddy?”

Pepper gasps on her next breath, sobbing. Her suit's catch releases and she falls out of her suit, to her knees. Happy rushes over and takes the little girl in his arms as her mom is consumed with grief. 

Confused and distressed, not wanting to see her mommy cry, Morgan begins tearing up, a whine escaping her throat. She struggles in her Uncle's grasp, but he holds her tightly, shushing her gently as he runs his hand through her hair.

Later, when her mom has regained her composure and cleaned up from the battle, she sits her down on the living room sofa. Morgan looks up at her with her brown, bambi eyes, so full of curiosity that Pepper nearly begins crying again. While she squeezes the little hand gripping hers, she explains that daddy had saved the whole universe, that he did it for them. And he loved her so much, but he had to take a long rest now. 

“When will daddy wake up?” she asks in her small, innocent voice. 

Her mother just shakes her head and wraps her arms around the tiny frame of her child. 

-

At first, she’s happy to see her dad. It had been three days since her mom flew back to the cabin without her daddy. She thinks that’s a really long time to sleep. 

But then she notices the blue sheen around him, how she could almost see through him. How he doesn’t seem to really be focusing on anyone. She starts to realize that it isn't really him. It's just a video, like the kind daddy and Friday would play with in the garage. Daddy must really be tired if he still isn't here, she thinks.

When he tells her he loves her three thousand, she becomes worried.

Was daddy saying goodbye?

-

At age six, she starts to realize that mostly everyone has a dad except for her. Her classmate Karen has two daddies. Her best friend Angel has a daddy who doesn't live with his mommy, but always sends him presents on his birthday. But she hasn't seen hers since she was four. She's starting to think he's never coming back.

But she has a mommy, Pepper, who takes her on boat rides on the lake and looks up at the sky like she's searching for something. She has an Uncle Rhodey who picks her up in his arms and flies her around the cabin, so she can fly like her favorite superhero, Iron Man. And she has a brother, Peter, who camps out in her tent with her and tells her stories about saving the day. 

She's happy that she has so much. But at night when she's curled up under the covers, eyes heavy with sleep, she looks at her door, wishing her daddy would come in to read her a bedtime story. 

-

At age eight, Uncle Rhodey starts bringing her into the garage when he visits. He shows her basic things on how to maintain Butterfingers, You, and Dummy. She takes to it like fish to water and soon, most of her time is spent in front of holograms, talking to Friday, and building her very own bots. Her mom and Uncle don't let her play with her machines alone, but when everyone's asleep, she sneaks out to grease up You's joints. 

-

At age ten, Clint Barton shows up at the cabin. She frowns, vaguely remembering seeing him somewhere, but not quite recognizing him. Her mom seems surprised to see him, but welcomes him in for a drink. They sit and exchange pleasantries, casually sipping their coffee.

She begins to realize who he is. She's seen his face so many times in photos of her dad, with the rest of the Avengers. She looks up at him and asks him if he would teach her how to shoot.

Her mom's head jumps to her and anger flashes across her face before turning into worry. Clint looks at her sadly. 

“I wanna learn to protect myself and I wanna be able to protect the world, like my dad,” she says.

Her mom gets upset, fuming that her daughter would want to do such a thing. Clint apologizes and ducks out of the cabin. 

The next week, he returns with a bow on his shoulder, a quiver full of arrows on his back. He gives her a small smile. She looks behind her to see her mom, who breathes out a resigned sigh.

“Just to defend yourself, okay?” she says.

Every Sunday after that becomes range day. Clint travels to the cabin and brings with him various targets to practice with. When she proves her skill there, they then start hunting in the woods. Sometimes, Cooper and Lila join them. 

In time, Hawkeye himself says her accuracy could rival his. He teaches her how to shoot a bow, crossbow, handgun, automatic, anything and everything. She can hit anything that moves and take it out in a single shot. Clint is proud of her, but he can't stop the niggling of worry in the back of his head.

-

At age thirteen, she's about to graduate high school at the very top of her class. She's seen as one of the brightest up and coming minds of the tech world, but her mom lets her know that her future is her choice. She could follow her father's footsteps at Stark Industries or she could do literally anything else. After all, she's Morgan Stark. 

Morgan herself isn't sure what she's going to do with her life. She supposes she has time to decide, but life to her feels so fleeting. She's only thirteen and she feels like she's had three stages of her life: with dad, after dad, and then this new one beginning after high school. 

She's decided on MIT. It has the most to offer considering her love and talent for mechanics, but it also just feels right. She feels connected there, like her father's spirit and passion is lingering in the school's corridors, waiting to be harnessed. 

Through everything, though, she still feels a hole in the pit of her stomach. An emptiness that at times feels like nausea. Beyond that, an anger. 

-

She's fifteen and just returned home from college on summer break. She has the house to herself as her mother won't be back from a business trip for another two days. The still, aloneness of the secluded cabin is both welcoming and dreaded. 

She thought her first year had been tough, but this one was worse. Friends were few and far in between. While some couldn't believe they were going to school with the daughter of Iron Man, some resented that a girl, just barely a teenager, surpassed them in intelligence and skill. The few friends at MIT that she had were probably not the best for her. And she knew that, but she didn't care. At least it was someone to keep her from loneliness, to distract her. 

As she sits on the floor of her father's garage, she pulls a handle of Jack out of her backpack. She takes a long swig and asks Friday to pull up footage of her father. 

When she was younger, her favorite thing to do was look at videos of her dad. She loved to hear his voice and catch the faint glimmers of memories floating through her head. Being so young when they lost him, her thoughts of him are faded and dull, but she knows he loved her. After all, she has a hologram of him telling her he loved her 3000. 

And that's what she ends up watching on loop, her father's final message to her and her mom. She's crying by the second play through and sobbing by the sixth. She knows it won't help, it'll only hurt to keep watching, but she doesn't care. It's all she has left of him. 

She takes another gulp. 

-

On her eighteenth birthday, Morgan is back at her childhood home, graduated summa cum laude, with a Master's in electrical engineering and a Bachelor's in physics just for kicks. She isn't sure what she wants her future to be. She's got all the makings of a great leader of Stark Industries, or so everyone says, but she isn't sure business suits her. What she truly wants to do is lock herself away and build to her heart's content. 

She's awoken in the morning by Friday.

“Miss Stark, your presence is required in the garage.”

Grumbling, Morgan rolls over in bed, pulling the covers up over her head. Whoever wants her to get up can go rot. She was done with school and deserved her beauty sleep. 

“Miss, I would advise you get up.”

Groaning, Morgan peeks out from under her blanket, “who could possibly need me right now, Fri?”

“Your father.”

Eyes widening, Morgan shoots out of bed. She runs downstairs, her socks causing her to slide on the hardwood floors and nearly into a wall, as she barges into the garage. 

Standing in the middle of the room, haloed in blue glow, is her father. 

“Dad…”

The hologram smiles, that soft smile reserved only for her. It's one of the few things she remembers clearly. “Hey, Little Miss,” he says. “Or should I say Big Miss now? After all, it is your eighteenth. I can't even begin to imagine how grown up and beautiful you must be.”

The image of her dad sighs to himself and she chokes on a sob.

“I really hope that this message never has to be opened. You're three right now and I can't fathom not being around for you, sweetheart. You are everything to me and leaving you without a dad would just be disgraceful.”

She falls to her knees, sobbing loudly, blinking away the tears quickly so she can take these new images of her dad in.

“But I know that the world can be unforgiving at times, so I gotta cover all the bases.” Somehow he knows where she is and he locks eyes with her. “I know what it's like, losing the ones you love. It hurts. It hurts so much, you feel like whatever part of you that broke when you lost them is never gonna mend. And it won't, not completely. I'm sorry.”

He pauses for a moment, takes in a slight gasp of air as his eyes begin to shine. “I'm so sorry, Morgan. I'm sorry I can't be there for you. But know that everything I've done since the day you were born, I've done for you. And I've got one last thing.”

A portion of the center console of the room begins to raise up onto a platform, the sound of hydraulics filling the room. Tony's hologram smiles and he motions over to it. “In there is a suit. It's yours, if you want it. I have no doubt that with my stubbornness and your mom's tenacity, both of which I know you have considering how badly you fought for those chocolate chip cookies tonight. I have no doubt that you'll figure out how to use it. Even still, I've left extensive notes on everything on a hard drive inside that case. Again, only if this is what you want.”

Morgan looks at the case the table has revealed. It's a black, metallic box with an electronic lock in the center. It clicks open automatically, the lid rising. Inside, there's a thumb drive and a nanotech arc reactor. 

“You can call it whatever you want. Mark 2500. The- Dad-Built-this-Lame-Thing-for-Me-Suit. Whatever. Personally, I've been calling it Excalibur.”

He grins at her and she grins back. She remembers some of her favorite stories he told were the legends of King Arthur. It was where one of her many nicknames from him came from. 

His image becomes solemn and her attention gets drawn fully back to him. “I just want you to have this in case, you know? Do what you will. Use it as a bodyguard. Maybe use it to help you move furniture. Avenge the Earth…” he trails off, smiling sadly. “Or let it collect dust. Whatever you need to do, my Morguna, you do it. Because I know you'll shake the world, no matter what you decide. I love you, sweetheart. Happy Birthday.”

He smiles one last time before the image flickers out of existence. She runs her hands along the arc reactor absently, still staring at where he used to be. Slowly, she turns to look at her present. She shakes her head in disbelief and picks up the glowing blue device.


	2. Chapter 2

The first time she puts on the suit, she flies. She isn't sure where she wants to go, but she knows she has to as soon as the nanotech slides over her skin.

The armor is sleek, golden in some areas and silver in others. It's not as flashy as her father's armor could be, but it's subtle and beautiful. She feels connected to it, knows that it was made just for her. She's impressed her father could make a suit so perfect for her when she was still so small. But she knows only he could accomplish such a thing.

She jets off into the night sky, twisting and turning, barrelling at times and at others, simply gliding. The whoosh of air she can feel hitting the armor feels more comfortable than anything. As she soars across the lake near her cabin, through the surrounding forests, and into the more populated areas, she thinks she's never felt more free. 

“Miss, your Uncle is attempting to contact you,” Friday interrupts her. 

Morgan answers the call, butterflies in her stomach. “How can I help you, dear Uncle?” she asks, voice light and teasing. 

“I just got an alert from the military that an unidentified object entered U.S. air space. And weirdly enough, it's near your house. You wouldn't happen to anything about that, would you?” He asks, jokingly. He has a good idea what's happened. “He gave you a suit, didn't he?”

She giggles, twirling midair. 

“Listen, you be careful with that and stay low so you don't keep alerting the military. I had to do this same thing for your dad when he first flew the Mark II. Never thought I'd have to with his daughter. Love you, Morgan.”

She ends the call and grins, laughing full bellied and joyfully. She does a somersault before charging her repulsors and jetting off into the sky.

-

The second time she uses the suit, she follows Peter into trouble. 

She has a police scanner set-up in the garage, constantly chattering in the background while she works. On this particular night, she hears of trouble in New York City. The kind of danger that Spiderman would throw himself into. She grins to herself and taps on the arc reactor strapped to her chest. 

Soaring off into the sky, she feels exhilarated as the adrenaline begins pumping through her veins. She thinks that this is how her dad must have felt when he donned the Iron Man suit. 

When she reaches the city proper, she sees her brother swinging through the air, casting webs onto a fire that's ravaging a city block. A giant monster covered in wiggling tentacles is writhing around on the ground, tossing cars every which way. 

She flies over to the fire and switches one of her repulsors to extinguish mode, helping Peter snuff out the fire. 

“I was wondering when I would see you,” he chuckles into her ear, his comm system syncing up with hers. “Rhodey told me you had a suit.”

She just smiles behind her faceplate and blasts over to the creature. It doesn't seem to notice her, more intent on wreaking havoc to the already devastated city block. She scans it with Friday, noting that the belly of the creature appears particularly weak. She mentions this to Peter and he warns her not to do anything until he can join her, but she turns off her comms and fires up all four repulsors. With determination, she blasts through the middle of the creature's abdomen, going through the front and right out the back. When she's out, she turns back to face the alien. It's stopped moving, going stiff as a board. Then, it erupts into a volcano of goo. The shockwave of the explosion shoots her back. She hits a building with full force, feeling something crack in her body at the collision, falling onto the ground. 

She must blackout for a moment because when she next opens her eyes, Peter is right above her and her faceplate is open. He's worried, his ever youthful face creased with rare frown lines as he checks his sister for injuries. 

“I told you to wait,” he admonishes her, shaking his head. “How do you feel?”

She feels like she's been run over by a bus. Her head is pounding and it's getting more and more difficult to take in a full breath. 

“Come on, let's get you to a hospital.”

She doesn't get to protest because he scoops her up with his superhuman strength and begins swinging them through the wreckage towards the nearest emergency unit. 

The next time she wakes up, her mother is holding her hand. Her clothes are rumpled and she's slumped over in a chair, her head resting on her daughter's stomach. Morgan's breath catches in her throat. It's not just the pain she's in, but she's worried her mother will be angry at her. She's scared she's disappointed her. 

Pepper startles at the whine that escapes her daughter's throat, squeezing the hand in hers as she sits up, looking at her baby girl. 

“Oh, sweetie,” she says, a small, sad smile on her face. She runs a hand gently along her daughter's bruised face. 

Morgan starts to cry, suddenly feeling like a little girl again in her mother's arms. 

“My darling girl. I'd be lying if I said I didn't expect this someday,” Pepper sighs. “I think your dad would be proud of you.” She chokes on a sob. “And I know you wanna be like him, but I don't think I could lose you, too.”

Her mother collapses on her stomach, wrapping her arms around her as she cries. Morgan runs a hand through her hair, weeping softly. 

She never meant to hurt her mom. She just wanted to do what she was meant to.

-

She doesn't use the suit again for a year. Oh, it tempts her and she still has the police scanner murmuring in the background as she works, but she doesn't think she could bare witnessing her mother breakdown again. 

It doesn't stop her from having the arc reactor strapped to her chest at times, nestled just above her heart. In the quiet, when it's just her thoughts and the hum of machinery, she runs her fingers along the casing. The warmth it gives her, the static of electricity and power she feels just under her fingertips is comforting. It makes her feel whole. 

-

She's twenty when she decides she can't take it anymore, just letting her father's gift to her go unused. She dons the armor again, but this time with purpose. She's not just going to run out into danger and hope for the best. She's going to do what her dad did. She's going to help protect the world. 

She helps Peter sometimes, stopping crime in NYC. She teams up with Shield occasionally to bring down evil plots, even a small resurgence of Hydra. She even joins the Black Panther in Wakanda once to foil an alien invasion. 

But in all honesty, she prefers fighting alone with nothing but her suit and Friday to thwart the bad guys. It keeps her on her toes and the endorphins running through her from close calls are like a high. 

Her mother has frequently expressed her distress with her choices, but when she starts making better decisions and coming back with less bruises, Pepper’s vocalizations slowly stop. It doesn't mean she isn't worried. She knows her mom will always worry about her. But it does mean she's come to accept that this is her daughter, suit and all. 

-

She's lost count the amount of times she's donned the armor now. She's helped save the earth on countless occasions and each time, she feels she's getting the hang of this hero thing more and more. The suit and her are becoming one. 

On this particular day, she's twenty-one and the villain of the day is plotting world decimation. He's a tough one. All of the heroes have been assembled and the battle has been raging on across Time's Square for hours. She's exhausted, both mentally and physically. The last blow she was dealt nearly knocked her unconscious as she'd been almost too slow to close her helmet. 

She's fighting right by her brother, watching his back. She warns him of an enemy on his flank, but she misses the enemy coming up behind her. When the blade pierces her armor, everything goes silent except for the pounding of her heart in her ears. The blade retracts and she falls to her knees. Her faceplate comes up and she sees, through blurry eyes tearing up from pain, Peter screaming her name. He's fighting savagely, trying to make his way over to her.

Her eyes are getting heavy and everything is fading in and out. Faintly, she thinks that this is it. This is what dying feels like. Her last thoughts are of her family. She hopes they won't be too sad.

As she falls onto her front, her breath stuttering to a stop, she begins to feel nothing. Until she is no more.

-

She's lying on a plush bed. She almost feels weightless, like the gravity has stopped working. But she isn't floating. She takes in a deep breath and she smells lavender and cotton. Her eyes open to a gold ceiling, sunlight bouncing off the surface. She's dressed in the comfiest, smoothest white pants and shirt that she's ever felt. 

She's confused. Just a moment ago, she had felt the worst pain of her life. Now, here she is, completely healthy and...wait, where is she?

Voices begin to filter into the room through the windows. They're open, with white drapes swaying gently from the outdoor breeze. The room she's in is mostly bare besides the cloud-like white bed and golden interior. 

She hears laughter outside and decides to investigate. There are sandals beside the bed, so she slips them on as she stands up. She opens the door, the sunlight blinding her all at once. She blinks her eyes against it and suddenly, the door behind her is gone. 

She's standing on a beach, the sun shining down. It's a comfortable temperature, the wind blowing gently and the waves lazily rolling up the shore. The sand is a shimmering white and the water is the purest blue she’s ever seen. She can feel the light mist of salt water kissing her cheek. 

Laughter again, this time from her right. She turns and sees two figures sitting on the sand, relaxed and chatting with one another. It's a man and a woman. The sun is making the woman's red hair shine in an unearthly way. She turns her head to look at her and Morgan gasps. She knows that face. She's seen it in so many pictures and videos of her father. 

Natasha smiles gently at Morgan and turns to look at the man next to her. She whispers something to the man and gives his shoulder a squeeze. The redhead then stands up and walks in the opposite direction before disappearing entirely. 

The man stands, wiping the sand off his trousers, smoothing down his shirt. He turns to face her and she can't help it. She starts sprinting towards him.

Tony laughs as he picks his daughter up, holding her tightly, spinning them around. 

“Oh, Little Miss. I've been waiting for you,” he says into her ear. 

He puts her down and pulls back just a little, just enough to get a look at her. She's crying, blotchy tears streaming down her face, but she's smiling brightly. 

“Dad,” she chokes out. “I've missed you so much.”

He pulls her back into his arms, shushing her, stroking her hair. “I know, I've missed you, too. Like you wouldn't believe.”

Her father explains that they're in Folkvangr, the afterlife of warriors. Those who strived for peace in battle would arrive here when they died. They lived in peace, in a heaven of sorts. He tells her this as they walk along the shore, her hand in her father's. 

“It's all gods and heroes and all that jazz. I've had sixteen years here and I'm still not completely sure on it,” he says, chuckling. “What I am sure of is that I'm happy and when missing you guys gets too tough to handle, I get to watch over you from above. Which might sound a little creepy, but it's just the important stuff. You don't know how proud I was when I watched you walk the stage at MIT.”

She smiles, choking on a laugh. She's still in complete disbelief that she's finally with her father again. He looks like he did in his younger days, before he became Iron Man. His beard is cut sharply and there isn't a single grey hair in sight. Even his frown lines have softened. 

“I'm just so happy to see you again,” she tells him, wiping at her tears with her sleeve. 

He smiles. “I know, sweetheart. But here's the thing. There's a ruler of this place, Lady Death--I know, it's pretentious. But since I beat Thanos and kind of saved the entire universe, she decided I could call in for a favor. Single use only. And she also mentioned that I'd be seeing you at some point. Way sooner than I should.” His voice darkens near the end, his smile turning sad.

Morgan shakes her head, backing away from her father. “I'm not going back.”

“Hey, hey, hey,” he follows her, taking her into his arms once more, framing her face with his hands. “Don't you think for a second that I wouldn't prefer to have you here with me. But it's just not your time yet, my Morguna. Your mom needs you. Pete needs you. The entire world needs you. I saved it for you and I saved this favor for you. It is always for you, don't you ever forget.”

“But how can I do it without you?” she sobs.

“You're not. I'm always with you. From that arc reactor,” he taps her chest. “To your heart. And in the big times in your life and the little moments where you think it's all crashing down, I swear to you, I am there. And when it's all over, when you're wrinkly and old and surrounded by the family you've made, I'll see you again. I promise.”

She's enveloped in another warm hug as she buries her face in his chest, closing her eyes, taking in everything before it's over. “I love you, dad.”

She can feel him disappearing into nothing in her arms while everything else fades as well. 

The last thing she hears before everything goes black again is her father, softly saying, “I love you 3000.”

-

She's back in her body on the battle strewn New York street with a start. She thought she would feel pain again, but she actually feels completely fine. Feeling at her abdomen, she realizes that the wound is gone. She smiles to herself and slowly rises to her feet. 

The battle has come to end, broken buildings tumbling down around them, crushed from the chaos. 

“Morgan!” Peter screams, running toward her. He crushes her into a hug. “I thought you were hurt!”

She just laughs, wrapping her arms around her brother, looking up at the sky. “No, I'm okay, actually. I think I'm really okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who's read and supported this little story of catharsis. 
> 
> I've been considering adding a companion piece to it and I'll update when I do. 
> 
> Peace and love. <3


End file.
